Competition And Honesty

Recently, I happened to be a part of conducting an activity-based vocabulary workshop for a homogenous set of intelligent young children for two days. A competitive atmosphere was created to motivate the kids to do their best. Each time-bound round was evaluated and points were allocated. The scores were displayed aboard. The winner of each round was rewarded with a bar of chocolate while the others got an éclair each. The initial rounds were enjoyed by all. A short break was announced. When the word games resumed, there was a noticeable difference in the attitude of the children. While some students continued with the same zest, other participants showed strange restlessness. A little observation revealed that some of them resorted to copying and cheating, while some others were very candid about their waning interest. A little threat about negative scoring set matters right till the end of the session.

 The second day’s activities began with a series of phone calls from parents and even grandparents. Their concerns ranged from wanting to know about the nature of the competitions, the basis of assessment, to giving suggestions to improve our workshop and even giving suitable excuses for the underperformance of their usually brilliant child.

 The participants for their part arrived with solemn faces. Some of them were thumbing their Webster’s before entering the premises. Others were answering good luck calls before switching off their phones. This scene made us realize that our purpose of imparting some knowledge the fun way had taken a beating. Incidents of trying to cheat and copy in a subtle way made us realize that the concept of healthy competition was passé. We axed our original plans for the day and instead narrated the story of how Gandhiji refused to correct the wrongly written spelling of “kettle” during a dictation, although his teacher prompted the same to him. In addition, we handed out bars of chocolates to the ones who were honest no matter their place in the race.

I am not really sure whether we were able to drive home the point effectively to all of them, nevertheless, some of them realized that it was indeed “cool” to be known as a person of integrity. Years of experience in the teaching line has made me realize that our educational system, ambitious parents, and students in an impressionable age group form a lethal triangle, paving way for a corrupt society and it is certainly deadlier than the all-consuming Bermuda triangle. It is time for us to give performance-oriented learning a good rest and rejuvenate learning for its own sake!